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I'm surprised a tiny change in genes doesn't completely destroy the viability of the organism. You can change one character in code and it no longer compiles or

I'm surprised a tiny change in genes doesn't completely destroy the viability of the organism. You can change one character in code and it no longer compiles or the entire thing crashes.

PaulHoule 2y ago
They do "knockout" experiments where people disable various genes all the time and find that some are essential and some aren't. See https://phys.org/news/2025-02-proteins-yeast-colonies-reveal-hidden.html https://phys.org/news/2025-02-proteins-yeast-colonies-reveal... for one that my RSS reader found for me.
layer8 2y ago
This provides some explanations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_mutation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_mutation
M95D 2y ago
1) Genetic code translates groups of 3 DNA bases (codons) to 1 aminoacid. But more than one group encodes the same protein. Example: TCT, TCC, TCA, TCG, AGT and AGC = all of them encode Serine. So there are some mutations that lead to the exact same protein. You may think of it as a form of data encoding with some basic data recovery properties. 2) DNA has 2 matching strands. Basically, 2 copies of the same information. DNA constantly degrades and is constantly repaired with information from the other pair. You may think of it as RAID1. 3) We have 2 copies for almost all the genes. Some more than 2. Hemoglobin-alpha has 4 copies. For keratin we have 100+ functional genes (and more non-functional). [1] Think of it as data backups and versioning. 4) For some organism functions, more than one protein do the same job. For some metabolic pathways there are alternatives. It's like we have both GTK and QT working at the same time for any program, and some ancient TK and SDL remains form our ancerstors that could be used if all else fails. 5) The "program" can still crash. It's a miscarriage / spontaneous abortion. Try again with different versions of "libraries" and it will work. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratin-associated_protein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratin-associated_protein
LegitShady 2y ago
in cases where tiny changes destroy the viability of an organism, most likely mutation would cause the destruction of said organism, and the only versions of said organism that remain are those that are not destroyed by tiny changes.
- izzydata 2y ago
  That actually makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

I'm surprised a tiny change in genes doesn't completely destroy the viability of the organism. You can change one character in code and it no longer compiles or the entire thing crashes.

PaulHoule 2y ago

They do "knockout" experiments where people disable various genes all the time and find that some are essential and some aren't. See https://phys.org/news/2025-02-proteins-yeast-colonies-reveal-hidden.html https://phys.org/news/2025-02-proteins-yeast-colonies-reveal... for one that my RSS reader found for me.

layer8 2y ago

This provides some explanations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_mutation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_mutation

M95D 2y ago

1) Genetic code translates groups of 3 DNA bases (codons) to 1 aminoacid. But more than one group encodes the same protein. Example: TCT, TCC, TCA, TCG, AGT and AGC = all of them encode Serine. So there are some mutations that lead to the exact same protein. You may think of it as a form of data encoding with some basic data recovery properties. 2) DNA has 2 matching strands. Basically, 2 copies of the same information. DNA constantly degrades and is constantly repaired with information from the other pair. You may think of it as RAID1. 3) We have 2 copies for almost all the genes. Some more than 2. Hemoglobin-alpha has 4 copies. For keratin we have 100+ functional genes (and more non-functional). [1] Think of it as data backups and versioning. 4) For some organism functions, more than one protein do the same job. For some metabolic pathways there are alternatives. It's like we have both GTK and QT working at the same time for any program, and some ancient TK and SDL remains form our ancerstors that could be used if all else fails. 5) The "program" can still crash. It's a miscarriage / spontaneous abortion. Try again with different versions of "libraries" and it will work. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratin-associated_protein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratin-associated_protein

LegitShady 2y ago

in cases where tiny changes destroy the viability of an organism, most likely mutation would cause the destruction of said organism, and the only versions of said organism that remain are those that are not destroyed by tiny changes.

izzydata 2y ago
That actually makes a lot of sense. Thank you.